THE SHIFTING GOVERNANCE OF STATE FORESTRY IN BRITAIN: A CRITICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE TRANSITION FROM PRODUCTIVISM TO POST-PRODUCTIVISM NERYS ELISA OWENS School of City and Regional Planning CARDIFF UNIVERSITY April 2009 UMI Number: U584500 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U584500 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 CARDIFF UNIVERSITY PRIFYSGOL C ae RDY[§> DECLARATION This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed .....................................(candidate) Date ....... STATEMENT 1 This thesis is being submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Signed ................................(candidate) D ate ...... STATEMENT 2 This thesis is the result of my own independent work/investigation, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by explicit references. Signed .................................. (candidate) Date ... ... STATEMENT 3 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter- library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed............ (candidate) Date .... .0.5 /. ^99f? SUMMARY I his thesis brings together key ideas on social nature, governance and regulation to provide a critical investigation of the shifting governance of state forestry in Britain. It is claimed that the state forestry sector has undergone a transition in recent years from a position within a regime of intensive industrial production to one based on post- industrial forestry, in which the traditional emphasis on timber production now sits alongside more recent trends towards the ‘socialisation' of forestry. Using evidence drawn from semi-structured interviews with policy actors from within the forestry sector and other rural, environmental and local government agencies the paper will examine whether these new forms of social forestry have been accompanied by new accumulation and governance systems or merely represents shifts in the discourse of forestry and forests promoted by the state. The paper then shifts to the sub-national scale to examine the implementation of national systems of forestry at the local level. Evidence from research undertaken in mid-Wales, UK on socio-cultural productions, representations and consumptions of nature within two forest communities are utilised to highlight the significance of past nature productions in influencing local understandings of nature and forestry and helping us to better understand the contested nature of forest landscapes in Wales. This serves to highlight the complex relations between national regulatory systems, local policy actors and local socio- natural systems. I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of my PhD supervisor, Professor. Paul Milboume, under whose supervision I first found an interest this topic and began the thesis. Dr. Richard Cowell and Dr. Gill Bristow, my panel members, have also been abundantly helpful, enabling me to progress by providing key resources and offering much valuable direction. Thanks are due also to staff throughout the Forestry Commission, both in Edinburgh and Aberystwyth, for their participation in the research. They provided much valuable information, without which this thesis would not have been possible. The participation of staff at other organisations that I contacted during the course of the study is also gratefully acknowledged. Most importantly, I would like to thank the residents within the communities of the Dyfl and Tywi Forest who shared much of the valuable data which I regard as the central feature of this thesis. I would also like to thank my fellow PhD colleagues in CPLAN, particularly Anna, Madeleine and Katie for their continued friendship and support, which has been much valued throughout the PhD. I cannot end without thanking my family, in particular my parents and sister on whose constant encouragement and love I am most grateful as they have always been there to encourage me throughout my work. Last but not least, I wish to express my greatest appreciation to Dafydd for his continued love and encouragement at the beginning of this journey and for his much needed emotional and psychological support throughout the thesis. The thesis was funded under a CASE studentship, by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Forestry Commission. Their contribution is gratefully acknowledged. II TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface.............................................................................................................................. VII Chapter 1: Governance, rurality and nature: exloring emerging discourses of state forestry in Britain...................................................................................................1 1.1 Introduction......................................................................................................1 1.2 Introducing Theories of Governance.......................................................... 3 1.2.1 Introduction.........................................................................................3 1.2.2 Rural Governance...............................................................................4 1.2.3 Environmental Governance..............................................................4 1.2.4 Forestry Governance......................................................................... 5 1.2.5 Interrogating the Governance Literature........................................9 1.2.6 Reflecting on the Concept of Governance....................................14 1.3 Understanding Changes in Forestry Governance and Regulation 15 1.3.1 Introduction....................................................................................... 15 1.3.2 The Regulation Approach................................................................16 1.3.3 Nature in Regulation Theory.......................................................... 19 1.3.4 Introducing Social Nature............................................................... 28 1.3.5 Theories of Govemmentality..........................................................35 1.4 Summary........................................................................................................ 39 1.5 Implications of the Regulation Approach................................................ 39 1.6 Introducing the Research Questions......................................................... 42 1.6.1 Stage One ........................................................................................... 43 1.6.2 Stage Tw o..........................................................................................43 1.6.3 Stage Three ........................................................................................44 Chapter 2: Research Methodology.............................................................................46 2.1 Introduction................................................................................................... 46 2.2 The Research Philosophy...........................................................................46 2.3 The Research Design Process.................................................................... 49 2.3.1 Defining the research questions.....................................................49 2.3.2 Selecting the research subjects .....................................................50 2.3.3 Choosing data collection methods................................................ 53 2.4 Proceeding with the Methodological Approach.....................................54 III 2.4.1 Stage One: GB-level research .......................................................54 2.4.2 Stage Two: National-level research.............................................59 2.4.3 Stage Three: Local-level research................................................61 2.5 Reflecting on the methodological approach.............................................66 2.6 An Integrated Approach to Data Analysis................................................ 67 2.5 Research approach: Conclusion.................................................................. 70 Chapter 3: National Governance and Regulation: a GB and Welsh perspective......................................................................................................... 72 3.1 Introduction..................................................................................................... 72 3.2 Setting the Scene............................................................................................ 72 3.3 The Changing Role and Function of the Forestry Commission.............79 3.3.1 Delivering Multiple Objectives .....................................................79 3.3.2 Social role..........................................................................................81 3.3.3 Environmental